Globe Toking

The most marijuana-friendly nations

By Ryan Tracy

Would Proposition 19, the proposal to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana use in California, have really generated the benefits that its proponents claimed? We may never know. But in theory, the answer is hazy for one main reason: Prop 19 would have gone further than any marijuana law on the books anywhere. The policy would have been revolutionary in the U.S., where marijuana is legal only for medical purposes—and that in just 13 states. But not even the world's pot meccas have legalized and taxed the drug from production to consumption, as Prop 19 would have allowed cities in California to do. Drug-policy experts, though, disagree on whether Prop 19 took the right approach. Do other parts of the world have a more sensible system? We've put together a slideshow of how some other countries in the world handle marijuana use.